{"id":17922,"date":"2012-01-07T09:47:58","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T17:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?p=17922"},"modified":"2018-02-01T23:53:55","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T23:53:55","slug":"drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"Drain it! Pay More for the Water! The Hetch-Hetchy Saga Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Francisco’s use of the Hetch-Hetchy Valley to store 85% of its water has come under fire…again.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
The Yosemite Valley offers some of the most spectacular views in California. Some people would like to see the Hetch-Hetchy Valley restored to a similar state.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the past couple of weeks San Francisco’s water supply and fixed annual fees for that water have come under attack by Republican Congressmen from other parts of the state. The first parry came from Representative Dan Lungren who represents the area stretching east from Sacramento. Lungren has a self-proclaimed “love affair” with Yosemite and thinks it’s worth spending some money to find out if restoring the valley is feasible. On KQED’s Forum<\/em> program<\/a>, Lungren argued that, “The possibility that we might have a second Yosemite Valley is something that at least I believe ought to be looked at. And yet everyone who opposes us seems to be afraid of looking at the facts.”<\/p>\n


\nThe other big threat to San Francisco’s pristine water supply comes from Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican from Tulare county. The Bay Citizen’s<\/em> John Upton reported<\/a> this week that Nunes is proposing that Hetch-Hetchy fees be used for deficit reduction.<\/p>\n

Rep. Devin Nunes, a Republican from Tulare, said the current low rent amounts to a federal subsidy for San Francisco\u2019s water and electricity supply and is unfair to farmers in his heavily agricultural district, whose water supply is diminished. He proposed to Congress\u2019 Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that the city be made to pay a fee comparable to what the government sought to charge Southern California Edison to operate a reservoir in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.<\/p>\n

The extra money would be a drip in the country\u2019s deep financial hole, but it would drive up the city\u2019s municipal power costs and reverberate through the water bills of 2.5 million Bay Area residents.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

San Francisco pays a fixed rate of $30,000 per year to use Hetch-Hetchy as a reservoir, a rate set in 1913 by the federal Raker Act. Nunes has proposed raising San Francisco’s annual fee to $34 million. That’s million, not thousand.<\/p>\n

The Raker Act is central to both of these attacks on San Francisco’s claim to Hetch-Hetchy. Lungren contends that San Francisco violates the law by not\u00a0using its other water resources first and failing to use newer technologies to improve efficiency. Ed Harrington, general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, doesn’t buy that argument. He says that residential water users in San Francisco use only a third of the water that Orange County residents use and are some of the most conscientious water users in the state.\u00a0“I would put my money on San Francisco where we have done a lot of things to conserve the use of water as opposed to try and build new plants in Golden Gate Park and places like that to recycle it,” he told Forum<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[module align=”right” width=”half” type=”pull-quote”]”John Muir defined it as one of Nature’s rarest and most precious mountain temples.”[\/module]<\/p>\n

“This idea that we are in violation of the Raker Act is simply not true,” Harrington said, in reaction to Lungren’s core complaint. He then made a historical argument about the intent of language around efficient use in the Raker Act. “There was a concern in the Central Valley that as we built Hetch-Hetchy we would bring water into the Bay Area for agricultural purposes,” he explained. He contends that Central Valley growers didn’t want competition, but that “the Congressman has chosen to stretch [that language] to make his point.”<\/p>\n

This argument isn’t just about Republican Congressmen taking on Democratic San Francisco. There are plenty of environmentalists who agree that San Francisco should return the valley to its pristine state. “John Muir defined it as\u00a0one of Nature’s rarest and most precious mountain temples,” says Mike Marshall of Restore Hetch-Hetchy<\/a>, who also makes a climate argument for restoration. “When we talk about climate change we should look at ecological restoration as one of those issues,” he told Forum<\/em> listners. “No one is really looking at our ability to absorb carbon.”<\/p>\n

\"\"
A dilapidated sign indicates that power comes from Hetch-Hetchy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Opponents to Representative Lungren’s plan say that restoration has been proposed many times and rejected as too expensive and detrimental, both to the 30 Bay Area cities that use Hetch-Hetchy water and to the 400 megawatts of clean power generated by the dam and used to power big electrical consumers in San Francisco, like Muni and San Francisco General Hospital. And, they claim that removing the dam would undoubtedly cause damage to Yosemite Park itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Francisco’s use of the Hetch-Hetchy Valley to store 85% of its water has come under fire…again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":234,"featured_media":17928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[277,655,660],"coauthors":[],"series":[],"affiliates":[],"programs":[],"collections":[],"interests":[],"class_list":["post-17922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-water","tag-hetch-hetchy","tag-water-power","tag-water-storage"],"acf":{"template_type":"standard","featured_image_type":"standard","is_audio_post":false},"yoast_head":"\nDrain it! Pay More for the Water! The Hetch-Hetchy Saga Continues | Climate Watch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Drain it! Pay More for the Water! The Hetch-Hetchy Saga Continues | Climate Watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"San Francisco's use of the Hetch-Hetchy Valley to store 85% of its water has come under fire...again.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Climate Watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-01-07T17:47:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-02-01T23:53:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2012\/01\/Yosemite-National-Park9.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Katrina Schwartz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@kschwart\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Katrina Schwartz\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/\",\"name\":\"Drain it! Pay More for the Water! The Hetch-Hetchy Saga Continues | Climate Watch\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-07T17:47:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-02-01T23:53:55+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#\/schema\/person\/39eb8de73cfee10d657c92249ec16212\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Drain it! Pay More for the Water! The Hetch-Hetchy Saga Continues\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/\",\"name\":\"Climate Watch\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#\/schema\/person\/39eb8de73cfee10d657c92249ec16212\",\"name\":\"Katrina Schwartz\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/68d4dc78000d2d4fc0cdfcf780b2b7ba\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a6a567574dafefa959593925eead665c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a6a567574dafefa959593925eead665c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Katrina Schwartz\"},\"description\":\"Katrina Schwartz is a journalist based in San Francisco. She's worked at KPCC public radio in LA and has reported on air and online for KQED since 2010.\u00a0 She covered how teaching and learning is changing for MindShift between 2012 and 2020. She is the co-host of the MindShift podcast and now produces KQED's Bay Curious podcast.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.kqed.org\/mindshift\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kschwart\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/author\/katrinaschwartz\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Drain it! Pay More for the Water! The Hetch-Hetchy Saga Continues | Climate Watch","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Drain it! Pay More for the Water! The Hetch-Hetchy Saga Continues | Climate Watch","og_description":"San Francisco's use of the Hetch-Hetchy Valley to store 85% of its water has come under fire...again.","og_url":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/","og_site_name":"Climate Watch","article_published_time":"2012-01-07T17:47:58+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-02-01T23:53:55+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1600,"height":1200,"url":"https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2012\/01\/Yosemite-National-Park9.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Katrina Schwartz","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@kschwart","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Katrina Schwartz","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/","url":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/","name":"Drain it! Pay More for the Water! The Hetch-Hetchy Saga Continues | Climate Watch","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-01-07T17:47:58+00:00","dateModified":"2018-02-01T23:53:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#\/schema\/person\/39eb8de73cfee10d657c92249ec16212"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/01\/07\/drain-it-pay-more-for-the-water-the-hetch-hetchy-saga-continues\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Drain it! Pay More for the Water! The Hetch-Hetchy Saga Continues"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#website","url":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/","name":"Climate Watch","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#\/schema\/person\/39eb8de73cfee10d657c92249ec16212","name":"Katrina Schwartz","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/68d4dc78000d2d4fc0cdfcf780b2b7ba","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a6a567574dafefa959593925eead665c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a6a567574dafefa959593925eead665c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Katrina Schwartz"},"description":"Katrina Schwartz is a journalist based in San Francisco. She's worked at KPCC public radio in LA and has reported on air and online for KQED since 2010.\u00a0 She covered how teaching and learning is changing for MindShift between 2012 and 2020. She is the co-host of the MindShift podcast and now produces KQED's Bay Curious podcast.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.kqed.org\/mindshift","https:\/\/twitter.com\/kschwart"],"url":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/author\/katrinaschwartz\/"}]}},"template_type":null,"featured_image_type":null,"is_audio_post":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17922"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24629,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17922\/revisions\/24629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17922"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=17922"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=17922"},{"taxonomy":"affiliates","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/affiliates?post=17922"},{"taxonomy":"programs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/programs?post=17922"},{"taxonomy":"collections","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collections?post=17922"},{"taxonomy":"interests","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/interests?post=17922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}